It’s Friday. The end of the week and I’m relieved. The obligations of the week are often accompanied by nuisances, irritations, and challenges that seem to pile up.

The things on my “To Do” list not yet done are somehow amplified as reminders of my failures and character flaws.

And yet…these verses in Lamentations are so important when I think I have lost my way or misplaced my joy. God’s compassions are new every morning. At a time when my conversations with God sound something like, “You knew what you were getting into when you chose me,” I really need that clean slate. The assurance that God doesn’t keep score and is probably (hopefully) not rolling his eyes at me every time I get side-tracked by the same old stuff.

The verses that follow are equally important.

“I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” Lamentations 3:24-26